Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Ever prefer a digital piano over a grand?

For those of us on a tight budget, the digital is the only choice, unless you want a bad acoustic piano. I have to practice very early in the morning, so the headphone option is a godsend.

I know it isn't a real piano, but it's the best I can do, and so I value my Yamaha CLP-115.

I agree! I had an upright that was so bad I wanted to cut it up and put it out for trash every Sunday after practicing on it. The PSO (POS to be exact) would sound okay one day then become a horrific beast by the weekend. I became so frustrated with it, I sold it to someone really cheap, took a big loss in fact, and purchased my Technics SX-PX which became my piano for 3 years while I saved up for a real piano again.

The digital has some benefits like late practicing and recording, but after awhile I found the touch to be annoying, heavy and actually tiring to play on, and the tone to be just okay. I could never quite adjust it to sound the way I wanted it to sound. I found that I missed the subtle nuances that can be achieved with a real acoustic piano. There was that something special missing from the digital, I can't describe in words, that was always in a decent piano.

Recently I tried some practticing and playing on the digital grand because we had company and I wanted to play the piano and not the clavichord. After awhile I couldn't stand it so for this reason, I am considering selling my digital grand to anyone who wants it. I will never go back to the digital again.

John

Digitals have the following advantages for me:
1) can practice quietly at any time of the day or night, with headphones
2) it is always in perfect tune; in fact you can change the tuning if you like, which is a very interesting thing to experiment with (e.g. various ancient temperaments)
3) you can turn on an organ sound, which continuously sustains the notes; it is an interesting way to more clearly hear sustained inner voices in Bach.
4) you can record into the piano's memory, perhaps at a careful slow tempo, then play a duet with yourself, at whatever speed you like
5) I find the action quite quick and light, actually requiring a certain increased fineness of finger control
The disadvantages of a digital, for me, are:
1) the quality of sound is substantially inferior; the more you play and compare, the more you realize this.
2) the touch is substantially inferior too; likewise, the more you play and compare, the more you realize this. Once I was preparing a piece to play publicly, and had only a digital to practice on; it was a shock when I got to the real piano.
3) The relationship one would have with the instrument is shallower. A piano generates tone and vibrates in the same way that your fingers and your ears move and vibrate. In this way, one can feel more connected to it. A digital generates tone in a way that is much more distantly related to human physiology. Furthermore, the technology itself is constantly in flux, over a few years. So it is really quite hard, I think, to feel emotionally attached to one's digital piano.

The bottom line is, I think one should have a digital AND a grand, if possible. If only one instrument is possible, then make it an acoustic. If you live in an apartment or can't afford an acoustic, then get a digital.

Well, there you go. No wonder I'm finding this piano less than ideal. A person once offered to sell me an identical piano for $7,200 and I briefly considered it. I suppose I was taken in by the mere appearance of a "Grand Piano". I mean, in our minds they are the ideal piano but I'm glad I didn't take him up on his offer for this particular type of piano anyway. It just doesn't have a good sound to my ears. Thanks very much, BruceD for providing the rating.

There's no reason not to prefer a digital over a complete disaster of a real piano, but that doesn't mean that they are two variations of the same thing; they aren't. A real piano and a digital device pretending as hard as it can to be a real piano are not the same thing.

Whew! wr must be coming off a long range acid trip from the "Summer of Love". Jerry Garcia, John Cipolina (Quicksilver), Grace Slick and ... the envelope please... Bill Graham (remember the Fillmore West?) even knew the difference between a real piano and a digital device.

And on to Anna Russell, "I'm not making this up, you know!"

But humour aside, your post seems rather tiresomely obvious.

Bachfan39 - your entire post was excellent summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of acoustic vs. digital (and nice "bottom line" too).

I have a Yamaha CVP-301 DP at home which has a fairly good weighted key action and a very nice "grand piano" voice which I would always want to have for it's advantages (recording, built-in accompaniment soundtracks, simulated instrument voices, etc.) - but I would love to have an acoustic grand also for it's one-of-a-kind sound and feel (I sometimes play an old, reconditioned, but always well-tuned Steinway at church and it's always such a unique and remarkable and delightful experience).

Regards, JF

Well to me, digitals do offer certain advantages as mentioned already by the others who have posted earlier. It does have certain applications/uses for each piano-player.

1) A particular feature I like in digitals would have to be the connectivity option. If you want to connect it to a good pair of loud speakers for a bigger venue of your performance all you need to do is have the necessary cables and hook it up to a good set of loud speakers and do some minor adjustments to any equalizer settings.

> This can be a bit tedious and a little expensive when using acoustic grands or even uprights. You'd need good condenser microphones placed in correct positions and distances, possibly an equalizer and a mixer plus the adjustments that are needed.

2) Another feature is the recorder functions of digitals. If I wanted, say, to record my piano-playing I can either do it by simply using the built-in recorder function of a DP or have the sound coursed through the LINE OUT ports straight into a PC's soundcard LINE-IN for recording (using an AUDIO-recording software).

Of course, you can also record your performance when using acoustic grands but the thing is, you'd have to factor in the surrounding noise/ambient sound (a neigbhor shouting, a car passing by etc.).

With a digital, its recording function can reduce other unnecessary noises and even possibly audible noises due to a not-so-well maintained acoustic piano.

> Perhaps the only concern in digitals would probably be the humming sound/static sound that may be evident in the LINE-OUT connection in certain cases.

3) If you are an arranger as well, the built-in 2-track recorders/sequencers (or more) that usually come with mid-to-high end digital pianos can make it easy for you to "preview" or hear your arrangements before you finally decide to give out the finished product (probably a sheet music for the strings section, brass section etc.) to other instrumentalists for performing/practising.

In other words, you don't need to wait for the next day when the other instrumentalists arrive just so you could hear if the blending of instruments based on your arrangement/notations would sound satisfactory or not...you can preview it right away.

4) Quick, on the spot, hassle-free transpositions are possible depending on the feature of a digital piano

5) Tuning is not needed. Pitch adjustment is possible with a few clicks of a button.

6) Playing late nights and early morning is a definite advantage in digitals. No more angry neighbors or waking up your kids early during early morning practice. All you need is a good pair of headphones.


However, digitals too have flaws:

1) It can sometimes "drown" inconsistencies in your execution of passages/scales due to the "reverb" effect that is a common feature of digitals...these things may be noticeable when using acoustic pianos...because of this I turn-off reverb when playing classical music so I could clearly hear whether I still need to polish up that segment or I really nailed it this time around.

2) Furthermore, the "feel" of the keys of acoustic pianos when you step on the sustain pedal is obviously not evident on the keys of digitals if you depress their sustain pedal.

3) You probably can't play a digital during electricity interruptions, unless you have a good power generator in your house. With an acoustic piano (grand or upright), you can obviously play piano even when there's no electricity.

4) A good well-maintained acoustic piano may last you many years...in times it might cause you to change certain parts or strings that were broken...but a digital piano's parts (depending on when it was manufactured) may no longer be available several years from now and the simulated hammer mechanisms may not be as durable as that of a good quality acoustic grand piano.

5) Due to more samples being done per note, increased dynamics is made possible in digitals. However, this may mask a flaw in one's technique. Often times, it "appears" that one has good dynamics when using digitals but when he/she starts playing on acoustic pianos, some of the dynamics are lost.

I'm sure there would be some who'd be disaggreeing with my statements/opinion, but, at least, to me, this is how I view "digital vs acoustic pianos".

Playing and having both is probably a good thing...since you get to enjoy the best of both worlds.

However, given a scenario wherein I was made to choose between a high-end, top-of-the line, full-featured, one-man-band digital piano and the best acoustic medium/concert grand piano that money can possibly buy...I'd still choose the acoustic grand piano hands down. NOTHING beats the real thing Come to think of it...piano grand masters both in the past and present were "made" or "born" out of acoustic grands

I have been spoiled by playing on my Baldwin R since I was 16, so I'll always take a grand piano over a digital. I've gotten to sample quite a few and the Roland line is the best, and if it ever got to a point that I needed to practice and I didn't want to leave home and it was late, I would go shell out some money for a Roland digital.

Still, digital pianos don't even hold a candle to my grand. I do tell students, however, who are very leery over buying a used upright, that a digital is a good way to go. They have Casios, Clavinovas, and Rolands, and for the most part they're happy with them. They haven't been to my house yet, heh.

I've seen and heard many grands in pretty big venues, yet I've never seen the "need" to hook up an acoustic grand to an amplification system.

Regards,

@ BruceD:

Well, I agree with you that concert grand pianos may not need amplification in certain large venues …concert halls, larger auditoriums or any closed-door venues…and quite surprisingly even on reasonably-sized outdoor venues (for as long as any surrounding noise wouldn’t be much of a problem and the audience remain silent, content in listening to classical music).

But there are different piano players nowadays…not just the classical concert pianist playing a piano concerto while being accompanied by an orchestra. In this scenario, the pianist is the lead “star” and by all means, the brass section had better play the music as written on the arrangement unless they plan to overpower the piano purposely…so to speak.

And there are, of course, still other types of music and events wherein amplification of a grand piano may be needed. In pop and rock concerts or festivals wherein there are thousands and thousands of people watching and listening…yes, that scene wherein audiences in the farthest areas of the outdoor venue could only see the musicians as roughly the size of ants…with the noise and all the massive speakers (those used in big-time pop or rock concerts).

It is in this scenario that these type of pianists may need amplification for their grand pianos…if they’re piano-playing is to be heard and not “drowned” by amplified bass, lead guitars, other percussion instruments and other synthesizer keyboards hooked up as well to the main loud speaker/amp system. The grand piano would need its fair share of amplification in this case because an unamplified grand piano in this scenario would definitely be drowned by other amplified instruments and I doubt if the people listening on the farthest areas of the concert/festival could hear clearly what the person on the grand piano is playing.

I still think that in certain situations, amplification of the grand piano is applicable and useful.

BeowulfX,

That was a very thorough summary. I might add one other thing that hasn't been mentioned yet.

If a pianist aspires to play publicly I believe it is helpful to have as much experience as possible on real pianos.

Each piano has its idiosyncracies in touch, tone, pedals, directionality of sound, and so forth.

If one is not used to these things it can be distracting.

If on the other hand the pianist has a lot of experiences on a variety of real pianos (both verticals and grands), then it seems that it is easier to adapt to any instrument.

This is especially important if you have to perform or audition on an instrument without much preparation.

Maybe we should give the electronic instrument a different name. Digio, maybe?

One further note about digitals, something I tried a few years ago, is that you can hook up a computer to the piano easily, and make a recording (e.g. of a scale) that is sent into the computer.
The program I had gave a detailed analysis of the tiny dynamic and temporal irregularities of what I thought was a very smoothly-played passage. By practicing further with this, I was able to improve the perfection of my tone, legato, tactile control, etc. using a type of "biofeedback" device through the computer--i.e. a type of feedback that my ear alone initially couldn't pick up. You can see visually where your technique and control are weak. This further helped with the acuity of one's auditory perception for clarity and tonal control.